The Forest at Night
by GRINtelligencer
Summary: Ada is alone when a dark flames appear in the air and dump a wounded man out onto the forest floor. Now Ada has to keep him alive until help gets to them. Ada and Liam centric.


**The Forest at Night**

**Rating:** T

**Summery:** Ada is alone when a dark flames appear in the air and dump a wounded man out onto the forest floor. Now Ada has to keep him alive until help gets to them. Ada and Liam centric.

**Characters/Pairings**: Ada, Liam, Sharon, and Break

**Comments:** Every time I say I'm not going to write another post-party fic I get another idea for a post-party one-shot or I remember something that I had meant to write. This story very much sprung from my original thought when Sharon said she was going to send Liam off to where Ada was -which was, what the hell is Ada supposed to do with him? She's a noble lady, she doesn't know anything about first-aid!

But this was written as a sort of worst case scenario, with the assumption that Ada didn't know Liam at all, that she wasn't with anyone else when Liam came through, and that Sharon didn't communicate anything to her through Eques. And boy is it a mess.

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><p>With the exception of the night that her brother had gone to his coming-of-age ceremony and never come back this was the worst night of Ada's life. She'd never thought when she was dressing for the party that she would see death and destruction among the people she had known for most of her life.<p>

The Pandora gentlemen who she had been given to by Mister Gilbert to protect said they were safe, though she was skeptical about how safe it was at the very gates of the mansion that was in flames. There were some other people like her here, nobles who had made it out of the mansion alive and mostly unhurt along with other agents.

There was too much panic in that nervous knot of people for her at the moment; she had stepped into the woods to take a few moments of peace alone. It was perfectly safe, even though she was a good distance in, there was a Pandora agent lingering by the tree-line in a way that suggested he was keeping any eye on her.

She took a deep breath of the cool night air and let it out slowly, wrapping her arms around herself and wishing her dress covered her more on top too. It was chilly in a dress designed for a fancy party.

In truth, she should go back to the others right now but she knew she was going to say something perfectly _rude_ to the next hysterical noble who spoke to her and that wouldn't be fair. She had planned to cool her frayed temper out here, although it was taking a while to work.

She chaffed her arms, trying to keep warm and wishing for a shawl. It was only because she looked up while she was doing this that she saw the black fire appear in the air. It roiled for a moment as Ada scurried back, not sure what it was but knowing she didn't want to be near it. The fire wasn't hot in the slightest, which was fortunate because if it had been she would have been scorched.

A hole appeared in the center of the fire, widening even as she watched in awe, too fascinated to run like any sensible person should have.

And it was a good thing that she did stay instead of fleeing because a man dropped from the hole in the black fire, fell at least eight feet down, and made a choked sound on landing. Once the man was clear of it the black fire rolled and sunk into itself, growing smaller and smaller before vanishing.

Maybe she would've bolted then, run for the Pandora agent nearby, after all there was no knowing if the man was friend or foe but from the pained noise the man made from the tall grass there was no doubt he was hurt. Badly. And Ada Vessalius wasn't the kind of girl that would refuse to help someone in pain.

She waded back through the grass, hands parting it in search of exactly where the man had fallen. If he hadn't been so near she might have had real trouble finding him, but she'd watched him drop so she had a pretty good idea where he would be.

When she did finally part the final bit of grass separating them she was aghast at what she found, the man wasn't just hurt, he was _terribly_ wounded. Moonlight gave her just enough illumination to see dark staining his clothes all over, especially over his shoulder.

Dropping to her knees she cautiously touched a hand to one of those dark stains and found that her guess had been right, after the massacre at the party she knew the smell of blood and what was on her fingers was definitely just that. There was so much of it… this poor man had blood all over his fancy clothes, she need to get help to him before he lost more than was safe.

Ada stood, looking back toward where she had last seen that Pandora agent and felt a surge of relief when she saw him, outlined against the moonlight. "Please help!" she shouted to him. "There's someone hurt here!"

She stayed on her feet just long enough to see that he turned toward her and was heading into the woods before kneeling again to start to rip strips from her dress. There wasn't much she knew about taking care of wounded people but bandages seemed to be a good start.

But since it was so dark she wasn't sure where should start, she didn't want to touch the man to see what wound was worst because if he fell from that height it was quite likely that he'd broken bones too. The last thing she wanted to do was to make a broken limb worse because she'd mess with it.

As it turned out this wasn't much of a problem because when the agent finally arrived he brought with him the lamp he must have had unlit in his hand when she called to him. He now had it lit and the light it cast over the scene made her hands shake.

"Miss Ada?" the agent was saying as he came forward. "What's wrong- by the Abyss!"

He'd clearly seen what she was kneeling next to because he dropped to his own knees, holding the lantern high so it still cast light over the entire scene.

"He dropped out of this black fire in the sky," she explained, knowing it sounded mad but also knowing that a Pandora agent would have heard -and would know about- a great deal of mad things. "And then whatever it was vanished!"

"Eques," the agent murmured, as if that was supposed to mean something, then reached out to touch a hand to the man's throat, looking for a pulse. He spoke as he did so. "That was a chain, Miss Ada, one that's bound to a Pandora member. It can transport people at need. …ah, he's still alive!" he apparently had found the pulse he was looking for because he rose to his feet again quite suddenly, speaking quickly. "I'm going to run for the doctor, I'll be back in a moment. Stay with him, please, I don't want to leave him alone. His name's Liam, Liam Lunettes and he's Lord Barma's servant. If he wakes up don't let him move!"

And with that the agent was off, crashing through the forest back to where the others where, leaving her alone with the unconscious man. At least he had left the lantern so now she had real light. The shoulder wound definitely needed to be bandaged first; it had the most blood around it and looked like it was still bleeding even now.

But the first strip of silk she laid on the wound became almost instantly soaked with blood, as did the next two. It wasn't until she tore a massive wad of cloth from her dress and folded it into a pad that she had any success in covering that wound. This was what she knew about tending to wounds, cover them and then… put pressure on the bleeding ones? She wasn't quite sure, she was a lady, she'd never been taught this kind of thing!

Besides, he wasn't just bleeding from his shoulder, there was a wound on his side and another on his leg that were almost as bad as the shoulder one, and even the other less serious cuts he had all over were worrying. She left the wad of cloth where it was and set about covering the worst of the wounds, at least, as much as she could without moving his too much. The leg she was able to tend to best since she could tie a bandage all the way around it without too much trouble and that seemed to help with the bleeding.

Finally she'd worked her way back up to the shoulder wound and was putting pressure on it by the simple method of bracing her hands on the pad of cloth and leaning onto them. All the while she hoped she wasn't doing something that would actually make this man's -Liam, hadn't the agent said his name was?- wounds worse instead of better.

Now that had time to actually look at his face Ada realized she recognized this man, she'd definitely seen him at the party, he'd been the tall man with the glasses. He still wore the glasses but they were missing all but a few shards in one lens and were cracked in the other.

She remembered seeing him speak with that funny servant of Lady Sharon's and briefly with her brother, who had later mentioned that he was there as the representative of Lord Barma, since that Lord had been unable to make the party himself. What on earth could have happened to this poor man? It almost looked like something with _claws_ had attacked him. After everything Ada had seen happen tonight she wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

Her hands were starting to get bloody and she realized, with horror, that he had bled through the cloth that she was pressing on and she hastily withdrew her hands to rip another wad of fabric from her rather butchered skirt. For a moment she dithered, not sure if she should put it on top of the already bloody cloth or not but in the end she decided it couldn't hurt to have layers. Speaking of layers she truly wished she did have that shawl now, not just because it was cold but because she wanted something to cover the man with. If she was chilly he had to be _freezing_ and it made her wince to think how much shivering would hurt him.

Propriety be damned, she was wearing several layers of petticoats after all and surely she didn't need _all_ of them when there was an emergency.

Fine silk ripped and she soon was pulling one of the petticoats down around her ankles and slipping it off. She ripped another couple out too, until all she had left was one petticoat and her dress with its rather butchered skirt. That was enough to keep her from either freezing to death or scandalizing some one who only glanced at her, as her dress still sort of hung right since she hadn't actually taken the hoop out.

And now she had plenty of petticoats to heap onto the man like blankets, tucking them in as best she could. She prayed she was doing the right thing and went back to put pressure on that shoulder wound.

What on earth could be taking that agent so long with the doctor? Surely one couldn't be _that_ far away!

It was very quiet now. She hadn't noticed how silent the forest around her was until this very moment. The silence was only broken by the man's ragged breathing and the beating of her heart which seemed so loud as to be audible to others. It was in those long moments she waited that she noticed something that made her gasp.

While the lamplight did glint quite a bit off the man's glasses she could see just barely see what might be the glitter of light off open eyes. Leaning forward she brushed her hair back behind her shoulder so it wouldn't fall in his face as she peered at him. Even with one of the lenses of his glasses broken it was hard to tell so she reached out to gently take the glasses from his face. With them set to the side she could clearly see that his eyes were just barely open, if he was conscious it was clearly only by the thinnest margin.

"Um, hello, Mister Liam." she said quietly. "I'm Ada, Oz's sister. I was at the party."

She could see his lips move, just a little, but if he made any sound she couldn't hear it. Ada leaned even closer, cocking her head so her ear was only inches away from his lips.

Then she could actually hear what he tried to say, though he seemed to have trouble forcing out the word. "Wh…ere?"

"We're outside the gates on the mansion, in the forest." Honestly, she was surprised he could speak at all, as badly as he was hurt. "There're other people nearby and a doctor's coming so just _hold on,_ okay, Mister Liam?"

"Xer…x…es?" the word was so drawn out she could barely figure out what he was saying, but she definitely wasn't going to ask him to repeat it.

After a moment she realized it was a name, the name of Lady Sharon's servant who she remembered this man speaking with at the party. His friend, maybe? "He's not here, I'm sorry. I think everyone else is in the mansion still." she debated for a second whether this was a good idea and then told him. "I don't think it's been that long since you got…sent away. Can I ask you some questions? You don't have to talk, just blink once for yes and twice for no."

He blinked once and she took that as agreement.

"Do you know what happened to my brother?"

Two blinks, wherever this man had been it apparently hadn't been around Oz.

"Lady Sharon?"

One blink.

"Is she alright?"

Another single blink and Ada sighed with relief; Lady Sharon was a friend.

"What about Vincent?"

Two blinks and she's bitterly disappointed, she had been worried about how Vincent had been acting and really hadn't wanted to leave him. But that couldn't be helped.

"Oh, I almost forgot, have you seen Gilbert?"

One blink.

"And is he alright?

One blink.

She almost didn't want to ask, but Mister Break was a nice man and people were dying in the mansion. Even if from the way he'd already asked about Mister Break it was quite likely that this man had thought he'd been unconscious for hours, maybe even days it was still worth asking. "Is… Mister Break alright?"

The man hesitated for one long moment. Then he blinked once.

"I'm so glad." she tried to smile. "Everyone seems to be alright." she glanced at him apologetically. "Well, alive anyway."

In the distance there was the sound of people crashing through the underbrush, when she sat up she could see lanterns in the distance and hear calling voices. "Lady Ada! Miss Ada? Are you still there?"

Ada gave the man a smile. "See, help is already here." Then she picked up the lantern and stood so they could see her more easily. "Over here!" she called, waving with her free hand. Unfortunately when she glanced down there was no more glitter of eyes from the wounded man, he had… no, surely he'd only passed out!

Dropping back to her knees she checked again for the pulse and found it, weak but there.

It didn't take the group of men long to reach her, she recognized among them the agent who had gone for the doctor, a man who carried a doctor's gladstone bag, and other men in Pandora uniform. It was the man who was definitely a doctor who fell to his knees at the man's side and started peeling the layers of fabric off him with a frown on his face. "All of you," he snapped, "Hold those lanterns high. Miss, did you do this?"

For a moment Ada didn't realize she was being spoken to then she quickly said, "Yes, it was me."

He'd peeled off the last petticoat and was starting to inspect the wounds. After a moment the doctor glanced up at her, "You did well, Miss."

Flushing she nodded her thanks. When the agent who she had first spoken to tugged her arm gently she let him tug her back.

"I can take you back to the others, Miss Ada." he offered. "There are blankets there and things for you to clean up."

That was when she realized she had blood all over her hands, all over her dress from ripping it, and in her hair from brushing it back. All of the sudden she felt dizzy.

The agent reached out to steady her with one arm, offering a handkerchief with his free hand.

She took it gladly and began to try to wipe the blood from her hands with it as he used the arm around her waist to guide her back through the forest toward where the nobles were. When she'd come into the forest she hadn't realized how far in she had walked, if something dangerous had come out of that hole in the sky instead of the wounded man she could have been in real trouble.

"Are you alright, Miss Ada?" the agent asked gently. "That's a lot of blood."

And it wasn't coming off as easily as she had hoped, she was going to have to wash it off. "It's all Mister Liam's I'm afraid. I'm perfectly fine." she glanced back over her shoulder at the shrinking patch of light behind them. "Do you… do you think he'll be alright?"

"I don't rightfully know Miss." the agent replied. "But the doctor will do what he can for him and that'll have to be enough for us, eh?"

She nodded agreement.

Soon they were back among the group of nervous nobles that she'd left so gladly earlier. She was quickly enfolded into the knot of ladies among them, who drew her aside, exclaiming over the blood on her hands and morning over the state of her dress. With their help she got most of the blood from her hands and arms, though her dress remained stubbornly stained.

Most of them were too tired to be hysterical now; the horror of the night had set in and made them all grim and quiet as they waited for news from the mansion. Bit by bit those who had been left there to sort out the mess or to rescue survivors trickled back. Finally Miss Sharon arrived, with her white haired servant's arm over her shoulder, keeping him on his feet.

Immediately her servant was swarmed with Pandora agents, who asked him several anxious questions before hurrying him away, presumably to another doctor because the servant looked quite pale and seemed to be favoring his side.

"Miss Sharon!" she called, hurrying to her.

"Miss Ada!" Sharon reached out to her hands to take hers, "You have blood all over you!"

"It's not mine," she assured her at once. "It's all Mister Liam's."

That made Sharon take another look at the amount of blood on her dress, her eyes concerned. "How was he?"

"Not well." Ada admitted. "But there's a doctor tending to him now. What about your servant?"

"I think he's going to be alright…" she sighed.

Ada gave her hands a comforting squeeze. "I'm sure he'll be well."

"Oh, that reminds me," Sharon gave her a small smile, "Your brother is fine, he's already to safety, along with Alice and Gilbert. I sent them with Eques." She looked around the knots of people. "Where is Mister Liam?"

"In the forest a little." Ada explained. "I had stepped away for a moment of quiet when he arrived."

That made Sharon wince. "So much was happening at the time that I didn't bother to check exactly where you were. Oh dear. Was help nearby?"

"There was an agent who ran for the doctor. That's why the majority of the bandages came from my skirt, I was afraid he was going to bleed to death before help came!"

The worry in Sharon's eyes made Ada regret her words almost instantly and she remembered something that she hoped would take her mind off her worry. "While I was tending his wounds Mister Liam woke, though only for a little."

"Did he say anything?" Sharon's voice was eager.

"He asked where he was, then he asked after a Xerxes. I think he meant your servant."

The expression that flashed over Sharon's face was momentarily surprise, then it became a little sad. "Of course he would." she said it as if she was speaking to herself, but the next she directed to Ada, "They work together."

From the way she said it the phrase sounded more like, "They're friends."

"That makes sense then." she said. And then, because the conversation needed it and she was tired of everyone being gloomy she linked her arm through Sharon's. "Come on," she said with a smile, "Let's go see if they're running carriages back to Pandora yet. I think we're both in need of new clothes, a bath, and some rest."

And together the two ladies walked into the crowd of agents.

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><p><strong>End<strong>


End file.
